Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

“I know the feeling,” I whispered.

He nodded. “I know you do. And believe me when I say I wanted to go after you as soon as you left. But in that moment, I realized that before I could make amends with you, I had to make amends with three other women in my life.”

“So you flew home.”

“I did. I went home and I apologized to Julie, and to my mom, and my grandma, and I promised them I would be better for them — for me.” He swallowed. “They didn’t even let me in, the first night I showed up. Not that I blame them,” he added quickly. “I deserved to be left in the cold. But they finally let me apologize, and like the saints all of them are, they forgave me.”

I rubbed his back, listening, watching the memories replay in his eyes.

“It’s not going to be easy for us, not for a long time I imagine. But they forgave me,” he said again, like he still didn’t believe it. “And I guess that’s a step.”

“A very big one,” I assured him.

“I told them about you, too.”

I balked. “You did?”

“I did,” he said with a tilt of his lips.

“What did you tell them?”

He tucked my hair behind one ear, his eyes searching mine. “Can I show you something?”

I frowned at the subject change, but my brain was such mush at this point that I simply nodded, letting him take my hand and guide me out of the museum. We walked down a block and around a corner to a dark alleyway, but it was filled with people. I frowned, trying to figure out what they were staring at as they walked along each side.

When we got close enough for me to see, I gasped.

Hanging on both sides of the alley were the sketches of my hands from yes night.

Small flashlights hung above each of them, illuminating the charcoal lines, but these weren’t the original sketches. They’d been tampered with, splattered and outlined in shimmery gold paint, and they were outlined by gold frames, too.

“What is this?” I asked, shaking my head as we approached the first one. I took in the sight of my hands through another person’s eyes, the shading of my knuckles and smooth lines of my fingertips, the curves of my nubbins, the slim bones of my wrist.

“You brought color to my life, Harley,” he said, grabbing both of my hands in his until I tore my gaze from the sketches and looked at him, instead. “Not just color, but a fiery glow. A meaning. A purpose.”

The crowd around us was far away now, their chatter distant, the lights fading until the only thing I saw was Liam.

“Remember when I said I came here to do something, but I just hadn’t figured out what? Well, I think I came here to find you. To be found by you.”

I nodded vigorously, because I felt the exact same way. I knew that feeling as if it were my own, as if I’d been the one trying to explain it to him rather than him to me.

“I don’t know if you know what it’s like to truly lose hope,” he said. “To lose that feeling of wanting anything, or caring about anything, or believing anything is worth the time and energy it takes just to exist.” He pulled me closer, the tip of his nose touching the bridge of mine as he closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to meet me. “You made me want again. You made me laugh again. You made me hope and desire and care.” He swallowed. “You make life worth living.”

I rolled my lips together as two silent tears slipped free, and I pulled him closer, wanting to wrap him up in all that I was.

“That’s what I told them,” he said, lifting his head to look at me.

I swallowed. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes,” he said. “Say yes to forgiving me. Say yes to loving me,” he added with something between a laugh and a cry as I squeezed my eyes shut and released another river of tears. But he wiped them away as quickly as they’d fallen, framing my face in his hands. “Say yes to doing this stupid, crazy, incredible thing called life with me.”

I cried harder with every word he said, already nodding, already leaning into him and surrendering.

“Because I love you, Harley Chambers,” he whispered against my lips, his hands in my hair and holding me to him. “And I want you all to myself.”

With that final declaration, his lips were on mine, and I gasped into that bruising kiss as a tsunami of elation flooded my body and soul. I pressed up onto my tiptoes to deepen the connection, wrapping my arms around him and crying more when I felt his arms fully wrap around me in return.